o People wanted to believe an isolated island exists in the ocean holding child sex slaves frequented by former US Presidents or
o The NASA space station has ET space ships floating around or
o tin foil hat CIA spys on 1000s of US citizens or
o Hillary is a Communist China agent selling military secrets or
o Hitler burned down a building in a power grab.
People belive and post the craziest things. :-;
Actually, the nexus of intelligence is separating the possibly real from the idiotic.
Some people “enjoy” these type stories, and even worse, in many cases involving sexual issues, those promoting the rumors are either trying to internally self-normalize their own conduct or desires, or simply get their jollies from talking about it.
Over the years, some of the most “Christian, God-fearing family friendly” people you would could ever imagine would come running to our firm trying to quash some scandal they had been caught up in.
It would always start with “I need your legal help to quash these lying rumors” then a few days later it would change to “I need your help to quash something I somehow got pulled into,” then a short time later, “I need your help to quash thing thing because if someone digs deep enough, they’ll find that I was really at the bottom of all this/my “fingerprints” are all over this/When it started, I never knew how big and problematic it would become...”
or in one case, “Someone is going to find the body!”
Oh, back when child sexual abuse was a big issue in the 80s, at least 98% of the claims of child sexual abuse in divorce cases would turn out to be BS.
Wife would come in screaming that she wanted a divorce because the hubby was diddling with a child, she really wasn’t after the money.....
When told that judges are hearing that 5 times a day and have become very anti-wife/mother if it couldn’t be proved. such as photos, testimony before the judge without either mother or father in room, they would all say, “Well, let’s try another tact..... “How much can I get it we claim he has a girlfriend!”
We had one case where child said the same two hundred words, word for word, 3 times. When, with mommy gone, the judge, a great old lady herself inquired about that. The child replied; ‘Because that’s how mommy told me to say it.... and since it really didn’t happen with Daddy, I have to say it exactly, or I’ll forget!”
#3 sounds reasonable.